sisters.

Two little girls come racing round the corner and plop down on two chairs in the middle of the row. Out pop two books and a crayon box.

Then another girl turns the corner, and one earnest colourer breaks off to clutch the seat next to her, and shake her frantically, black curls flying out behind. Big sister.

In a minute, a littler girl with little black ringlets and a bag round her neck bigger than her body, which knocks the breath out of her at every second step, comes running round. And she wriggles into the empty seat. The other two don't even look up. Little sister.

She looks intently at sister and friend. Pulls out a book, and opens to a page with a picture in the bottom-right corner, like theirs. Looks again- at the bowed head, curls quivering, and man and house and sky yellowing beneath the hand. Then reaches for a crayon lying in her sister's lap, and begins to red a man of her own.

polyps

I know the basic facts about coral polyps. Little, defenceless creatures who use minerals they find floating around to build themselves an armour, or a home, that stays on long after they are dead to form other living things’ homes, and tourist sites, and holiday islands.
But what does the polyp feel about it, I wonder? Little, colourless, limp creature with eyes cautiously peeping, does he know that he’s doing just what those slaves who built the Pyramids, and the slaves who built the Great Wall, did ? Only we assume he does it of his own volition. There is no great and cruel Coral Lord to cut off his thumbs or his head after, say, the Barrier Reef’s constructed. Does he even know that’s what he’s doing when he secretes himself a hidey-hole ? Did they ?
And how do they all pile up so efficiently and organisedly if there isn’t a polyp Architect or Contractor to oversee things with the Bigger Picture in mind ? (with a coral hard-hat on, of course. Safety First.)
Maybe it’s really a pilgrimage, the last journey of every polyp, to die in the place all polyps go to die, to fulfil some destiny too vast for any of them to see. A polyp Haj. So that the Maldives are actually the polyp version of the Park Street Cemetery. ‘Sacred to the memory’ written in the polyp tongue that hides the secret of the Greater Purpose.
And then, what they leave behind is really greater than what the Egyptian slaves did, or the Chinese, because it lives. It’s a home, not a tomb or a public works project. For ever after, each polyp who added his bit is blessed by the each little fish family, each cranky old sting-ray who found the perfect hollow, even though the neighbourhood is a bit loud, and the cool dude fish who consider themselves lucky that they got a pretty neat place at such low rental, in such a happening spot. And there are colour carnivals, and swim-abouts, and plankton on the house, and sometimes, huge figures in black sticky-suits, who point, and stare in wonder. Life illuminates the things he left behind.Would you call it a noble act if it was a matter of course, and not some decision in the face of insurmountable odds ? It was definitely a good act, in result at least, that those polyps did. Even if they didn’t know the master plan. Even if they were only instruments. Each of them, I suppose, was free to not play second fiddle to the millions of others who had done this thing before him. Just to be contrary, they could have floated out and surrendered their skeletons to the deep black of the Marianas Trench. But they didn’t. And so the music came to be. Here’s lookin’ at you, polyp.

On a book.

That's it ?
What's it?
That's all ?
Yes.
That's the end?
Yes.
That's the magnificent end.
I never said it was magnificent.
But you implied it.
No, I said I liked it.
Yes, so..
That isn't the same thing. Anyway, I take it you don't like it ?
No. Is that a surprise?
I don't know. I hadn't thought about it. I just showed it to you.
Without any expectations of what I would say ?
Yes, I think so.
At any rate, I don't like it.
Why not ?
I just don't.
But surely you must have a reason.
I just- I don't like something about it. Perhaps it's the end.
What don't you like about the end ?
It's so abrupt.
It's meant to be. That's the point.
But what's the point ?
It's unenending. A circle of thought. I don't see why you don't like it.
I don't see why you wrote it, so we're quits.
No,I mean, it's a good ending... I liked it.
If you're going to be so sure of your own opinion, don't ask for someone else's.
But your dislike is so unreasonable.
It isn't. I don't understand this book. I don't feel good about it. So I don't like it.
All books are not meant to reassure your self-esteem, I'm afraid.
That's it. I can't... live upto this. I look for something of myself in everything. To identify with.Your book doesn't give me that. It has nothing to do with my self-esteem. Or perhaps it does. You're not very good for it, and neither is your book. I've given my opinion on it. I'm sorry if it doesn't live up to yours.
What on earth are you talking about ?
It doesn't matter.



It did.
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

A very original book.
Thank you.
I might publish it.
Thank you.
I don't like it.
What ?
Yes.
Then why would you publish it ?
Because someone might like it.
But that doesn't make sense.
Why ever not ?
It doesn't. You should publish what you like. Or you should have acquired a taste for what you publish. Or for what the people like.
Why ?
That's what all the publishers do.
I'm not an ordinary publisher.
But you're a big and popular one.
Yes. Because I publish something for everybody.
But why ? Surely every publishing company has a... a sort of policy ?
Maybe they do. Diversity is mine. Out is in these days, as in the sixties. And in is in, as in the 90s. And there are period freaks, as there have always been. And children, and romantic girls, and testosterone-filled boys, and conservative women, and dry, factual men. I publish for all of them.
...But... I mean...
Anyway, my policy isn't your business. I know my business, and this will go through. As I said, someone might like it.


Someone didn't.
.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Why didn't it work ?
They can't say.
They're supposed to know. They're the experts.
People didn't like it.
But why didn't they ?
Because they didn't.
But for what reason ?
They don't need a reason.
Nonsense. Everyone always has a reason. They hardly ever express it, but they always have one. They're just afraid it'll be the wrong one.
I don't think so.
I know it. I've seen a lot of people in my time.
I'm sure you have.
Many kinds of them. And in many ways they're all the same.
No doubt.
So what's the reason ?
They don't have one.


They did.
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................

The book was a disaster.
Yes, it was.
Why ?
They didn't take to it.
Why not ?
I'm not sure. But it bombed.
Yes, but the question is why ? What was wrong with it ?
It seemed to have all the right characteristics for a book of its kind.
What kind was it ?
You didn't read it ?
You did, didn't you ? Why should I have to ?
Well... It was an ideas book.
What sort of ideas ?
Socio-psychological sort of thing.
Speak English.
I'm doing just that. Learn English. You publish books in that language.
I know enough to serve my purpose. Now explain.
Well, it's about psychology of the elements of society, a critique, that sort of thing. Very intellectual.
Pseudo- ?
Seemed genuine enough.
Reviews ?
Mixed.
The best, in other words. So what went wrong.
It's been demonstrated to us, once again, that critics are not normal people.
A very expensive lesson.
Yes.
[Pause]
Can't believe the genre's dying out, though. What happened to good old sensical social commentary ?
'Sensical' isn't a word. It appears your English isn't exactly the Queen's, either.
It isn't a word, but it will be. It's evolving into one. 37 % more people use 'sensical' than 'vagaries', 'callous' or 'transsubstantiation'.
Is that true ?
No.
So.
Yes. The extinction of social commentary.
Yes.
I'd better cross it off my list.
Yes.
mmm...Ballad poetry...Farce... Murder- by Poison... Poetic fantasy... Self-improvement... Ah. Social commentary. No more of that.
You're sure ?
I'd say it looks to be quite conclusively proved.
Perhaps, yes. But I don't like crossing things off.
Well, neither do I. We publish everything, as I extensively explained to the boy.
This boy ?
Yes.
The expensive author.
[irritatedly] Yes.
Ironic.
Yes.


It really was. Not to mention sad.

Bathwater and the adult.

There are two ways to feel warm when you get out of the shower.

One is to drown yourself in lots and lots of steaming water for a long time, so that when you get out you have enough warmth for the thief, the cold around, and enough warmth left over for yourself.

The other is to douse yourself in freezing water, cold slap-splashing your skin, so that when you get out, even the cold air seems relatively warm.

There are two ways to survive life's knocks too.

I want to say whangdoodle.

Young, young, young.

After feeling 82-and-three-quarters-round-the-bend for weeks, feels good.

Bernard Shaw, a bit. The epilogue to Pygmalion. Lots sensible. Feeling better.

Reading old writing, and saying 'Phooey!' to Shakespeare. Wish I could read Othello without reading it. Reading it is such trouble. But it's something. So feeling better. Want to read Three Men In A Bummel. What is a bummel, anyway ?

Want to laugh at a good joke. Only, I forget jokes as son as I've laughed at them. Sometimes before.

Don't want to watch Teevee anymore. Horrid Teevee. Makes me dull and 2-D. Though it's really 2-D itself. But it's got colour. And attitude. Oh yes, it's got attitude, you must admit. And good PR. But still. Stupidifying.

Want to watch things like The History Boys. Felt full, and satiated with goodmovieness after that.

Oho.

Feeling quite better with all the neologising. Doubt that's a word. But while I'm at it. Understand the full joys of it. Sure I'm as good at it as Shakespeare was. 'Brainsickly' indeed. [snort derisively]

Dooby-dooby-doo. I shall study, and gets lots of marks, and win the world.

Castanet. Cerebellum. Cormorant. Karamazoo.

A.F.C.

I always feel a stir of sympathy when I look at that AC-AVC-AFC cost curves diagram. For the AFC.

The Average Cost Curve, a smiling U-shape at the top, and just below it, at first keeping its uniform distance, the Average Variable cost curve, which later goes and cozies up to the boss, getting closer and closer. And here at the bottom of the graph is the poor old Average Fixed, honourably and uselessly forming his uniformly-sized rectangles all along his rectangular- hyperbola form.
Well, I feel sorry for the fellow. On and on he plods with his not- too- interesting (in fact, rather dull) duty, and there above, and right in front of his nose, that upstart has made the upward turn and is getting better and better acquainted with the superior.
And the poor fellow will probably be accused of coldness, and being a stuffed pickle, turning up his nose at a little workplace joie-de-vivre. And will keep having a smaller and smaller role to play, getting further and further away from the site of the action, until he's finally pensioned off at 65, and replaced by another fellow just like him, for he has a pretty important role to play, you know, despite all appearances.